How to Eat (and Drink) Your Way Through the US Open

"Anyone for a lobster roll?" Well wouldn't that be nice? Yes it would, thank you, were it not followed, immediately upon my arrival at the Food Village of the USTA's Billie Jean King National Tennis Center last night, Heineken in hand, by: "Because we're out of slaw." Now Sam Sifton would have you believe that the L.R.M. (that's restaurant critic for Lobster Roll Moment) demands a slaw-less version anyway, but he would also have you believe that the food at the US Open is thought-out no better than the food at an airport. And he would be right — kinda.

So there are two things to be avoided at the most attended sporting event of the year, should you find yourself attending: airport food and lines. Man, there are lines — even when they're out of half the ingredients. "I get one fifteen-minute break in a twenty-one-hour shift," said the grounds supervisor in front of me at the Southern BBQ Station, "and it's over before I get halfway to the Ultimate Fries." What are Ultimate Fries, you ask? That would be brisket, bacon, green onions, sour cream, and cheddar over a single, jewel-case-size waffle fry. (They like waffle fries at the US Open.) And this brisket thing wouldn't be half-bad for haute airport food were the words NIMAN RANCH SAUSAGE not right under it on the Southern BBQ Station's menu. This thing, with "apple slaw" and too much bun, was only about three-quarters bad:

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Not that there isn't a let's-put-things-on-waffles trend going on at the US Open this year. At the Heineken Light Lounge, somewhere beneath the thumping music there was this nice little club sandwich creation — turkey, decently smoked bacon, some L and some T, all on a Belgian waffle — that went nicely with beer No. 2:

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Still, the guy on line also told me that fifty-seven people fainted in three hours at the Open yesterday, and that means you don't want to be a guy on line for very long. So unless you make friends with the register gal at the Carnegie Deli station, best to avoid the food court altogether. Not inside, because inside's literally just stadium food, but maybe over by the ESPN booth near the main-court gate at the Master Chef Café, where Rick Moonen offers a shrimp dog with "Asian slaw" and slightly less bun and Susan Feniger's tacos are prepared carefully, if with the stand-in chef's back to you:

Before you head in to, you know, watch some tennis, grab your lady one of the "honey deuce" drinks Grey Goose makes over at its bar. It's ultimately lemonade and vodka and a coupla melon balls, but, man, it's nice to have a real bar here. An outdoor bar. It is to sports what the drive-in is to cinema, only there's a Ralph Lauren store somewhere over there. This new hotel opening in Vegas soon, The Cosmopolitan, has a bar, too, and so does Tony Mantuano — but it's a wine bar, and no one should drink wine while watching sports. Movies, maybe, but not sports.

As for the food? "You just gotta know the best places," said this guy on line, the guy who knew the place from eating three meals a day here and maybe four. "Or else you're paying ten bucks for —" He made a small, slawless invisible sandwich in his hands, then closed the bun: "This."

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